Poetry
Amaranto
Not translated into English
Glória de Sant'Anna · 1988
Synopsis
The poems from 1951 to 1983, including those of the collections published during the Mozambican years. The sea at Pemba, on the Indian Ocean, returns constantly, a fraternal presence, at times unsettling or tragic, surrounded by solitude and silence. In “Maternité”, a white woman and a black woman look at each other and smile, both of them mothers; elsewhere, the poet bends over the death of a black child accompanied only by rain and time. An “incomplete songbook” gathers the poems that the war in Mozambique inspired in her from 1961 to 1971.
Context
The volume, subtitled “Poesia 1951-1983”, reprints the books the author had published from 1951 to 1972, mostly at her own expense, first in Portugal and then in Lourenço Marques, and adds later poems; those of 1964 and 1972 already touched on the colonial war. It appeared in Lisbon in 1988, from the Imprensa Nacional, preceded by a preface by Eugénio Lisboa, for whom silence is the refuge of this poetry.
Who it is for
In Portuguese, with no French translation. A brief, intimate poetry turned towards the sea; knowing the coastline of the north of the country helps in reading it.
Prizes and reception
Poets who came after independence, such as Eduardo White or Patraquim, enter into dialogue with these verses; the author is credited with having founded a lyric tradition in Mozambique.
Sources for this page 4
The pages consulted to check this page.